The present invention relates to a combination unit for making tobacco products.
Such combinations are composed of a first machine and a second machine linked one to the other by a transfer unit.
The first and the second machine could consist respectively in a filter maker and a user machine, or alternatively, a cigarette maker capable of forming a single tobacco rod or multiple tobacco rods (two or three), and a filter tip attachment machine, which will combine to make up a cigarette manufacturing line.
Reference is made in the present specification to this second type of combination, albeit implying no limitation.
A typical filter cigarette manufacturing line includes a cigarette maker defining a substantially horizontal first leg, installed in series with at least one filter tip attachment machine comprising a plurality of rollers ordered in such a way as to establish a second leg substantially transverse to the first leg.
The two machines are linked by a transfer unit such as will pick up cigarettes at the outfeed of the first leg and place them in aspirating grooves on the surface of revolution presented by an infeed roller at the start of the second leg.
Manufacturing lines of this type are affected by the drawbacks of being bulky, and of having to rely on transfer units generally unable to handle the high operating speeds of modern cigarette making and filter tip attachment machines, inasmuch as the cigarettes are subjected to notable stresses during the passage from the first to the second machine.
The object of the present invention is to provide a combination unit of compact dimensions, embodied in such a way that the stresses on the cigarettes during their transfer from the first machine to the second will be significantly reduced.